Facebook reportedly mulling end-to-end encryption for Messenger

According to a new report, Facebook may be gearing up to launch an option to encrypt interactions through its Messenger app. That’s according to The Guardian, which states that the option would come as a separate mode that could be enabled by users.

From The Guardian:

In the coming months, according to three people close to the project, the social media company plans to release an optional encrypted communications mode for its Messenger app, which is used by more than 900 million people.

The system will let users deploy so-called end-to-end encryption meant to block both authorities and Facebook from reading users’ texts.

According to the report, Facebook will take an opt-in approach to the feature because encrypting communications would necessarily interfere with some of the machine learning features required by chat bots — a feature the company unveiled at its recent developer conference.

In any case, it will be interesting to see if Facebook does indeed go this route with messenger. It’s also worth noting that Facebook-owned WhatsApp recently enabled end-to-end encryption by default for all of its users.